the concept

Dear After Me,

I had a good day. I know, bizarre, right? I never seem to post after good days. Well, don’t call this a new leaf. One post is never a new leaf. You can’t even see the leaf from here. Got that? No leaf.

When I was little, it never occurred to me that there was anything weird about the way I played with my toys. Or rather, the way I made them communicate. They talked, just like people in books. And me, well I was the facilitator. I didn’t speak in the voices of my characters. Instead, I told their stories. Third person narrative, all the way.

I didn’t realize this was weird until I played with someone who wasn’t in my close family. She watched me telling stories with my characters for a few minutes and then told me that I was doing it all wrong. By that point it was too late. I was the narrator.

It wasn’t until years later that I grasped the full meaning. I never wanted to be my barbies when I was younger, I just wanted to tell their stories. I don’t think that this is what made me a writer. I think that this was me writing all along.

Sometimes being a storyteller means that other people will tell you that you’re doing it all wrong. That doesn’t mean you’ll stop. Because, more than likely, you couldn’t, even if you tried.

“The shortest distance between truth and a human being is a story.”
Anthony De Mello